Ever wondered what goes into creating the captivating videos at a football club? Behind the scenes at Bolton Wanderers, Videographer Marcus Harrison is the man behind the lens, capturing everything from matchday excitement to player interviews.
In this exclusive interview with Behind Sport, Marcus Harrison pulls back the curtain on his role, revealing the challenges, the creative process, and the passion that drives his work in the world of sports media.
Tell us about yourself, what do you do in your current role and what roles have you done previously?
I’m Marcus Harrison, the videographer at Bolton Wanderers, I am responsible for all things video at the club, both on a matchday and during the week.
This includes coming up with, filming and editing features for Wanderers TV with the help of the rest of the media team.
I have worked at the club for around four years now, mainly in this role but I also volunteered as an Analyst Assistant, where I would provide video that would be used in a footballing sense, as opposed to a media sense, for the First Team staff.
What three words would you use to describe your role?
The three words that I would use to describe my role would be unique, exciting and evolving.
“Normal” isn’t a thing in sport so what does an “average” week look like for you?
An average week in my role is fairly regimented, due to the volume of games in League One. In the early part of the week, I would usually be dealing with outstanding content from the previous game on the Saturday. This includes cutting and adding the scoreboard and clock overlays to the full match replay and creating our behind-the-scenes feature ‘Inside Matchday’ to appear on the club’s subscription channel, Wanderers TV.
If there is a game on the Tuesday, I would expect to film and edit the manager and player pre-match press conferences on the Monday afternoon, along with one of our new features, the ‘Matchday Preview’ with Wanderers legend John McGinlay. I would then be off work on the Tuesday until we needed to travel to the away game or until late afternoon for a home game.
The best part of the week is the matchday. It is the part of the week that usually dictates whether the week of work has been a positive one or not. There is quite a lot of work that goes into a matchday behind-the-scenes to create as much content for Wanderers fans pre and post game as possible.
The first task when I get in is to film and edit the scene setter. This is a short piece of content used across the club’s social media channels to build excitement for the game ahead, particularly helpful when we are away from home and the surroundings are more unfamiliar. This is achieved with the help of our commentator, Derek Clark, who kindly records a minute sound bite for me to overlay onto my video.
After that, it is onto filming player arrivals for Inside Matchday and waiting for the team news so that we can film our latest feature for Wanderers TV, ‘Team News’. In this feature, John McGinlay is joined by Derek Clark pitch-side to discuss the team and their thoughts. This feature can be extremely challenging due to the very tight turnaround between getting the teams, filming the video and getting the content edited and across our channels prior to kick-off.
From there, it is setting up additional features like Bench and Fan Cam and filming for Inside Matchday pre and during the game. I try to be as mobile as possible, using a gimbal, allowing me to bring the game to life a bit more. By doing this, I aim to bring angles and a look to the game that you can’t get through the traditional highlights footage. Post game, I film and edit the post match reaction of the manager and a player and in games that we get a positive result, I walk the pitch with a player and John McGinlay to get a more relaxed form of content, the Wanderers Walk-around.
How did you end up where you are right now? When did you know you wanted to work in sport?
I ended up where I am now by offering my work free of charge wherever possible, trying to find ways of making myself standout from the crowd by having my own unique selling point. For me, this was drones.
I have always had an interest in aviation and drones and because of this, I was able to get a point of view from the sky that was extremely hard to get any other way. It has become more common now but at the time, it was a great way of elevating content and making myself standout.
My three main passions have always been aviation, videography and Bolton Wanderers. My current role is a pretty good balance of all three, I get to use my drone on a daily basis, spend my life with a camera in my hand and travel the country with the club that I support, and so I have always known that a job like this would be for me.
What is your number one focus when it comes to your work?
For myself, my number one focus is always aiming to get better. In truth, I am never happy with anything that I produce or any of my new ideas, I always want to go a step further.
I think that this is a really good way of thinking because almost without knowing it, you are constantly evolving and your ideas are getting better and better.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career so far?
The most important lesson that I’d say that I have learnt is to go out there and do it for yourself. I went to university and sat through the lectures but in an industry like this, I truly believe that the most valuable lessons that you will learn is by being out there and making your own mistakes.
You soon learn from your mistakes when you are 200 miles from home, and you realise that your post-match interview microphones are on your desk at work.
What are you excited about in your industry at the moment?
The thing that I am most excited about in the sporting industry is the fact that there is almost no way of predicting where you are going to be in a month / year / two years.
As proved by the likes of Ipswich Town, you can be playing League One football one minute and playing in the Premier League the next and you are on that journey also.
If you could change one thing about your Industry, what would you change?
If I could change one thing about the industry it would definitely be the travelling. I run my own freelance videography business on the side of my work at Wanderers, and it can be so hard to run this alongside my job when I am getting home at 2/3 in the morning and freelancing the next day.
We had a week in late September where we were away 3 times in 6 days. We had Arsenal away in the Carabao Cup on the Wednesday, Crawley away on the Saturday and Northampton away on the Tuesday. We ended up staying in London for three days and I was on a freelance job instantly upon my return, not giving me much time to catch up!
Sport is a hectic industry, what do you do to switch off?
To switch off, I spend a lot of time tending to my many pets or attending airshows and airforce bases. I have a combined 775 litres of saltwater tanks split across two fish tanks and my very own chameleon amongst other less unusual pets. You can often find me spending my time off trekking to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire to watch the Typhoon fighter jets.
If you were to give a piece of advice to someone wanting to do your role, what would you say?
If I was to give someone a piece of advice to someone who was wanting to do my role, I would say to do your best to get hold of a camera and get out there and volunteer.
You need to spend as long as you can with a camera in your hand as videography is something that you will always be learning with and so the sooner you get on that journey, the better you’ll be. Find something that makes you unique and stand out from the crowd.
How to connect with Marcus Harrison…
Social links wise, my personal X account is @marcus_bwfc, my freelance company is called Bolton Video Company and is @boltonvideoco on X, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook.
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